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Many college students have had the experience of needing to take a required course in finance or economics that they were reluctant to register for because of the complexity of the subject matter. Nonetheless, they were soon pleasantly surprised to find that a talented and motivated instructor could make the subject spring to life. Indeed, a skillful prof can light up just about any topic. Recently, I had this type of experience again.

I had developed my own, well, academic interest in bitcoin during the past few years, following various events and tech developments in the news. Not overly curious, but just keeping an eye on developments. I felt no particular need to go out and learn too much more about it.

This changed for me on the very cold evening of February 9, 2015, when I attended a terrific presentation at the New York office of the law firm of Latham & Watkins entitled Bitcoin – No Boundaries: Innovation in Bitcoin. The event was very professionally and graciously organized by the financial firm Hedgeable. The agenda consisted of six brief demos by bitcoin startups followed by a panel discussion of experts. The link above contains full videos of the entire program, including links to the startups’ websites, all of which I highly recommend viewing.

My completely unscientific poll of the attendees whom I left with on the elevator on the way out was unanimous that they learned a great deal from all of the speakers and presenters and, in turn, were motivated to go out and learn more about the bitcoin movement. Their enthusiasm reminded me of a favorite quote of mine attributed Nobel Prize winning physicist I.I. Rabi. I recalled it from years ago when I read Silicon Dreams: Information, Man and Machine by Robert Lucky (St.Matin’s Press, 1989). To paraphrase it: When asked about the inspiration for his great scientific achievements, Rabi recalled that each day when he returned home from school and his mother greeted him, rather than asking him whether he knew the answers to the teacher’s questions, instead she would ask him whether he asked any good questions.

New and intriguing questions, developments and events about bitcoin are now regularly covered by the media.

My own follow-up effort to further satisfy my heightened curiosity after the February 9th event was to soon thereafter acquire a copy of The Age of Cryptocurrency (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey. Mr. Casey was one of the four panelists that night as he can be seen in the video. This book has done much to help me to better grok bitcoin, with its deep and wide explanations about virtual currencies’ fundamentals (including, among many others, “blockchain” “digital wallet”, and “hashrates”), markets and histories.

More specifically, although bitcoin has only been around for six years, grasping the entirety and significance of its remarkable origin and originator (Satoshi Nakatomo), operations, concepts, implications, leaders, investors, benefits, technical flaws, security, encryption protocols, entrepreneurs, communities, supporters, critics, regulations and politics seems to involve more angles than a geometry textbook. Nonetheless, despite the daunting challenge of carefully introducing and then logically mapping out all of this, the authors have constructed, in a very internally consistent manner, a finely detailed travel guide exploring this new world.

Furthermore, The Age of Cryptocurrency can benefit the different levels of understanding about bitcoin being sought by a wide spectrum of readers. From those with just a passing who/what/where/why curiosity and then scaling up to people seriously involving themselves in this emerging realm, there is plenty in this text to ponder and consume.

One of bitcoin’s technological operations involves setting up powerful computers (dubbed “mining rigs”), dedicated to solve difficult mathematical equations that will, in turn, release specific quantities of bitcoin on a regular basis. This process is called “mining”. So, too, have authors Vigna and Casey comprehensively mined their subject matter to produce an accessible, informative and spirited book.